Photo-a-Day  (Friday, 13th June, 2025)

It's good to know somethings in Wigan don't change or get demolished....I often wonder if any of the council ever look at WW & ponder about the thoughts the towns inhabitants have of them...probably not.

A superb photograph. It captures so much detail about ordinary people doing an everyday thing. Not to mention the panoramic view of the pavilion. Cannot read the clock properly but it seems to be 11.25am.

it is grade ll listed so there is little chance it will be replaced by a modern box building,

I like the round window . Takes me back to Play School .

That's a lovely photo of a special place. I can remember going on Sunday afternoons with my parents and realising, even though I couldn't explain it, that it had a 1920s feel to it even in the fifties. I can remember having a glass of Vimto with a blob of ice-cream in it or a milk-shake, which was a shilling. " Ee, Bob, it's dear", my Mam would say, and my Dad would answer, "Dunt matter, Tizzie.....it'll do 'er good, milk".....I can hear them still! Apart from having modern furniture now, it really hasn't changed all that much.

Nothing better than a well composed picture with a story attached.
I was in that cafe a few weeks back, Fredrick’s Ice Cream ,delicious.
All them years ago Cassinellis Ice cream was always full of ice crystals, very white and a bit tasteless.

I would be surprised if you didn’t get any complaints about photographing those kids Colin. People are very touchy these days about their kids being photographed and not without good reason.

I know what you mean DTease, but I could hardly shout ‘Clear Off’ while I take a picture!
I do like that little chap in the buggy with his sunglasses on though. Nothing I can see in the picture that could be deemed inoffensive or inappropriate. Just everyday folk going about their business.

You can thank Maggie Thatcher for the airy creamy consistency of modern ice cream with no moo, WN6, with it being her job when working as an industrial chemist to invent the recipe. Frederick's was sold in 2013; the owner also makes ice cream for Cadbury's and other brands, and it is mass produced in their factory in Skelmersdale. Cassinelli's on the other hand was local and family owned, the chefs followed the original recipe and was a smooth, creamy taste, and was beloved by many Napoletani and of course Wiganers.

Cassinelli's ice cream - tasteless and full of ice crystals, as you say, WN6, - could not stand comparison with Lewis's, which was delicious.

And there me thinking she invented Thatchers Cider.

Lovely memories even recent ones a few years ago with my two grandchildren in the school holidays. Both nearly21 and 18. It’s a lovely Victorian atmosphere although if I remember it was dark wood inside.

Really? Tony Lewis got his ice cream from Cassinelli, as did most of the vans.

I’ve only been out for the afternoon.
I know the structure was made in Glasgow but seems the Glasgow Ice Cream War has reared its head again!!!

I'm risking getting raspberry sauce squirted at me, but I would say that in Wigan, it was De Roma who was a big favourite of ice cream buyers. In the mid 1980s they opened a retail shop in their ice cream plant off Chapel Lane, where alongside perfect products, imperfect ones were sold, and you could get big bags of Cornetto etc, and with not much wrong with them and for not very much either, until De Roma at Chapel Lane suddenly closed.